A Study Of The Process Of Court Conciliation

Court conciliation, an activity of disputes resolution conducted by judges, is crowned by foreigners as "Oriental Experience". As a typical Chinese litigation system, court conciliation has been well explored as a legal concept and significant insights have been gained. However, little attention has been paid to the systematic study on the process of court conciliation from a linguistic perspective.The present study, drawing on insights from previous studies, and based on empirical data of 20 cases of Chinese court conciliation, proposes a theoretical framework on the basis of Relevance Theory. Guided by this established theoretical framework, the present study aims to explore the stages of court conciliation, linguistic choices in court conciliation and function of these linguistic choices in court conciliation. After a detailed analysis of the data collected, it is found that the process of court conciliation is a process where judges, governed by the principle of relevance, make linguistic choices at the lexical, syntactic and discourse levels at each stage of court conciliation, so as to enlarge mutual manifestness between parties and reach a conciliation agreement.Though there are several limitations, the present study has nonetheless been justified by its significance and implications. The present study will assist judges and parties to have a better understanding of the process, linguistic choices and principles governing these linguistic choices in court conciliation. It will also enrich the current literature on court conciliation from a linguistic perspective and facilitate foreigners interested to have a better understanding of court conciliation.